Home Depot Inc. has the goal of offering Apple Inc.’s mobile-payment platform at its more than 2,000 stores, which would make it the largest retailer yet to accept Apple Pay.
“It’s something we’d like to do,” Steve Holmes, a spokesman for Atlanta-based Home Depot, said on Tuesday. However, a deal with Apple isn’t in place, so the plan isn’t final, he said. The chain, which currently accepts PayPal, also may add other kinds of mobile payment, he said.
Customers already were able to use Apple Pay at some of Home Depot’s stores despite there not being an agreement. The world’s largest home-improvement retailer could accept mobile payments at those locations because its checkout terminals have near-field communication readers.
Those devices have now been turned off for the past few weeks during an upgrade of its point-of-sale system, Holmes said. That led to some inaccurate reports that Home Depot had dropped Apple Pay.
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SOURCE: Bloomberg, Matt Townsend
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